Young Inughuit girls : 'Esquimaux Girls'

Hand-coloured group portrait, three-quarters length, of six Esquimaux girls, aged between five and fiteen years, standing, facing the viewer. All wear fur lined collars and three of the girls wear brightly coloured piping on their trousers.

In 1854, Edward Augustus Inglefield undertook an expedition to the Arctic to provide assistance to HMS Resolute, one of the many expeditions that was seeking information on the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew. Following his return to England, Inglefield presented to Queen Victoria an album of 30 photographs taken in northern Greenland. In November 1853 the Queen had seen some of Inglefield's paintings from an earlier expedition. A number of his watercolours can be found in the Royal Collection today.